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As somebody who has published cybersecurity research AND a good number of youtube videos about niche video games, I can promise you making a YouTube series on an obscure video game does not get in the way of doing scientific research. With the magic of unrestrained autism, both are possible.
In 1820s Germany, the only guys documenting every beetle were basically the idle rich. The average person was working 12 hour days on a farm, or weaving cloth, or sorting through sewage for something useful.
This here. I've thought about going the way of old school naturalists, but I just don't have the resources, chiefly in time.
This is also why the modern trend is making YouTube videos. The people who do that are frequently hoping the channel takes off and they can get paid. It's not just public service or documenting an interest. The scientists of the early 1800s were frequently people who didn't have to work. They had estates that generated money for them, allowing them to pursue science as a hobby.
Well would you rather have the idle rich making gaming youtube videos or documenting beetles?
I'd rather have them taxed so other people can have idle to document beetles or make gaming YouTube videos.
I don't really care about the idle rich. It's good when society is rich enough that the non-rich can spend their time making YouTube videos.
...good point
Creative boredom died with smartphones, mine as well. I hate it! But I hate being bored and having to come up with shit to do more. :(
I deleted Facebook and Xitter from my phone, I got a lot of my time back. Neither social media I still actively use are addictive as much, and I became much more productive. That reminds me that I have a very important code documentation work to do, including documenting version changes.
Most of the comments seem rather defensive. Is the post calling someone out?
I dont think so. I think theyre just trying to be accurate about whats its like to be the sort of person that gets very into their interests.
It seems overly nitpicky, like the larger point is being ignored because of technicalities
Welcome to ASD
Someone already listed all the beetles in 1820 what are we supposed to do??
We remake the list with modern enhancements such as lens glare.
Maybe Photoshop in a thigh gap
And ray tracing
And chromatic abheration!
Some Vsync if you're feeling nasty
Someone just found a new species of legless skink in Australia. Could have been us but you playing.
...I read that as skank.
I need to be caffeinated.
Legless skank... this better not awaken anything in me
i hope Legless Skank (the punk band) awakens within you a strong passion for self expression
🎵 I've been through the desert on a skank with no legs 🎵
Check they're all still there and note any changes, which ones are no longer around, which new ones have joined them etc.
Loads to be getting on with there :)
Overthrow oligarchy
Right? Let's get more of these people interested in left wing politics instead of insects or trains or whatever
Get into genetics, make new beetles.
Thr last thing we need is more beetles. There are so many of them as is!
Half of them have died off since 1960.
We've been through this, there's a scale problem. Also I'm not sure the parts are compatible.
Personally, I find the insinuation that I can't make a 26 part YouTube series about how collect all the rings in every sonic game, AND document every kind of beetle in my local province, belittling and insulting.
Beetling, if you will.
The same guy would have very likely have died before he was even 10. And if he wasn't dead very likely to work in a meaningless job to even survive unable to spend time on things on bugs.
It takes resources to do "useless" things.
Shoutout to the oldschool runescape wiki people. One of the best and most thorough video game wikis I've ever used. If they never got hooked on medieval cookie clicker a decade or two ago who knows what else they would've achieved.
Any Austin embodies this AND he's a talented musician, that guy is awesome
So what's the issue about that again?
Controversial take: advancing science is better than spending weeks optimising how to play video games for children.
Controversal take: humans don't have maximize productivity in every moment of their lives. It's perfectly acceptable for someone to spend their spare time making in depth videos if that is something they enjoy doing.
Every moment of every day does not need to be spent maximizing productivity, otherwise what are doing on Lemmy instead of cataloging beetles?
There's so much black and white thinking here, and maybe my previous comment is partly to blame too...
"Documenting beetles" can be exactly what you do in your spare time because you enjoy it, without productivity being your goal. You can do it just so. It's nothing unusual.
The point of the OP is that some people have a lot of focus and curiosity that makes them fixate on solving stuff even if it seems mind-numbing to outsiders, and that a lot of that mind-numbing stuff-solving can actually be incredibly valuable for others, expanding our understanding of the world, etc. It does feel wasteful that such energy ends up spent on something that has way smaller or entirely nonexistent benefit for others.
I should have said this in my comments sooner, while the thread was still active, but here it goes anyway: we still absolutely need this sort of meticulous, "mind-numbing" work. Wikipedia is probably the best and most prominent example of such an effort that is run basically just on people's free time and curiosity and willpower.
This also isn't meant to say that playing video games should be avoided completely. I joked about my "utilitarianism calculator" in an another comment, but hopefully it's obvious it's an exaggeration. OP specifically talks of people who spend exorbitant amounts of time and effort optimising how to play a game, they're not just enjoying it and relaxing with it as is otherwise normal for games and sports and similar activities. So it's basically just the same sort of work as documenting beetles, but without the eventual benefits...
If we absolutely need this work we should pay somebody to do it. Also set up some quality requirements and guarantees of the task being completed.
I get your point but I question the value of a hobbyists research vs that of a scientists. Documenting beetles as a hobby may mean jotting down their shape and color while a scientist would dissect the thing and index their internal organs. Not saying a hobbyist wont do that, but it will be restrictive to do so. It may require education or special equipment and in the end, will still be less credible work unless published in the same scientific fashion scientists are accustomed to. Fact is, we don't mind coloring outside the lines in a hobby. I may be wrong here but the areas hobbyists can usefully contribute to are few, so we opt to studying digital worlds instead.
NOOOOO MY HOBBY OF STARING AT A SCREEN FOR 4 HOURS IN A ROW IS GOOD
Science has already done as much beetle documentation as one can do without a bunch of resources, though. You wouldn't be advancing it, just redoing it for fun. There's nothing wrong with that, but there's also nothing wrong with playing video games for fun.
Beetle documentation was just one example
Replicating science is actually pretty important, and there's no way a "civilized" area has the same beetles in 2025 as in 1820.